The present invention relates to wound dressings and, in particular, to an improved wound dressing delivery system.
Polymeric wound care dressings are very generally thin "plastic" films with an adherent side that may be applied to a patient. They are commonly used by clinicians in association with managing wounds that occur during or result from various surgical procedures. For example, prior to many surgical procedures, a polymeric wound dressing is applied to the skin of the patient over the site of the operation. Surgical incisions are made through the thin polymeric dressing and into the skin of the patient. The wound dressing permits easier handling of the skin surrounding the incision site and, as a result, increases the accuracy of the incision. Furthermore, use of a wound dressing in this manner reduces the risk of any infection resulting from the surgical procedure.
In other applications, polymeric wound dressings are applied to the patient after the surgery is completed. In these applications, the wound dressings serve the important function of preventing post-operative infection.
Polymeric films useful as wound dressings are known to those of skill in the art. For example, such polymeric films are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,437,622 to Carion, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,884,563 to Sessions. Both the Carion and Sessions patents disclose in conjunction with the wound dressings various dressing application systems with a number of different nonadherent tabs or strips to assist the clinician in placing the sticky wound dressing to the patient. These strips and tabs result in a more complex structure which increases manufacturing costs. Moreover, the tabs or strips are only helpful in placing a whole wound dressing. Oftentimes, a clinician must cut a wound dressing prior to application to size it to the wound. The placement tabs or strips of the prior art are often ineffective in facilitating application when the dressing must be cut, because the cut portions do not have appropriately placed nonadherent portions that the clinician may grasp when placing the cut dressing.
Accordingly, there exists a need for a wound dressing application system which provides the clinician with improved flexibility in cutting the dressing to size prior to its application, and, at the same time, is of a simple structure to promote low cost manufacturing.